Aid agencies have no problem agreeing that gender-sensitive programming is a good idea, but few have come up with concrete methods for evaluating the impact it has on those it is supposed to be helping - until now.

ECDPM's James Mackie interviews Alexander De Croo, Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and Minister of Development Cooperation in the margins of the Finance for Development meeting in Addis Ababa on 14 July, 2015.

Netherlands Wants Benin to Prevent Fraud Before Resuming Aid Bloomberg The Dutch government has asked Benin to submit proposals to prevent embezzlement of donor funds before it decides whether to resume aid to the West African country.

When we first read the results of the 2014 Open Data Index, we said we had big expectations for 2015. We couldn’t be more right: today, the federal ministerial council has, by recommendation of Minister De Croo and Secretary of State Francken, approved an ambitious federal open data strategy. Open by default: an important step to embed Belgium into the digital global ecosystem.

One of the many baffling aspects of the post-2015/Sustainable Development Goal process is how little research therehas been on the impact of their predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals. That may sound odd, given how often we hear ‘the MDGs are on/off track’ on poverty, health, education etc, but saying ‘the MDG for poverty reduction has been achieved five years ahead of schedule’ is not at all the same as saying ‘the MDGs caused that poverty reduction’ – a classic case of confusing correlation with causation.

This paper argues that public sector reform efforts in developing countries should embrace these changes selectively and draw on a range of public management models that are appropriate to different contexts while putting the needs and interests of citizens at the heart of reform.

Now that the sustainable development goals are — in the main — agreed, what needs to happen to turn this global manifesto into a national policy agenda?

The clock to SDG attainment will start ticking Jan. 1, 2016. Here are five things that will be important to ensure the much-debated goals and targets — and the overarching vision of a new future for everyone — actually start to be implemented.

ECONOMISTS who study Africa use dodgy theory and inappropriate statistical techniques, and at times deliberately mislead. In an interesting and highly readable book, Morten Jerven, himself an economist of Africa at Simon Fraser University in Canada, pulls no punches. He offers a devastating critique of the economics profession and asks provocative questions. But he overstates his case and offers few practical solutions.

With a sigh of relief, negotiators concluded four days of discussion at the third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Under stormy skies, and among even more stormy confrontations in the negotiation room, a new Addis Ababa Action Agenda was born. But what does it mean for the SDG summit in September, and beyond?

Negotiations on the FFD communique were reportedly very difficult, with breakdowns of trust on all sides. Divisions emerged around two big questions: Who makes key decisions on global development policy, and who pays for the sustainable development goals?

The Global South is being drained of resources by the rest of the world and it is losing far more each year than it gains. Africa alone loses $192 billion each year to the rest of the world. This is mainly in profits made by foreign companies, tax dodging and the costs of adapting to climate change. Whilst rich countries often talk about the aid their countries give to Africa, this is in fact less than $30 billion each year. Even when you add this to foreign investment, remittances and other resources that flow into the continent, Africa still suffers an overall loss of $58 billion every year. The idea that we are aiding Africa is flawed; it is Africa that is aiding the rest of the world.

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